


All I Want For Christmas Is You

by BadHidingSpot



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8847763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadHidingSpot/pseuds/BadHidingSpot
Summary: Derek isn't home for Christmas.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steamcurious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steamcurious/gifts).



> My recent head cannon (after this fic was written) is that Stiles is actually amazing at gift giving and knows it.

Stiles is so bad at gift giving. Like phenomenally bad, right? Like no one on Earth could be as bad at gift giving as Stiles. Not even Krampus (if he exists, which now that he thinks of it maybe he should ask Deaton about that just in case) could give a worse gift than Stiles. And that guy straight up murders people. After taking care of the gifts for people he knows less (a box of surgical gloves for Deaton, a chew toy for Liam, and a flashlight for Mason) Stiles has found himself, this Christmas, staring down his computer screen hatefully wishing that this time of year didn’t come every year. Maybe if he wished really hard he could make it Christmas Eve every day and then Christmas would never come and he would never have to choose even more shitty gifts for the people he loves, and he wouldn’t have to see them all fake enthusiasm (or in some cases not bother with that) over his poorly picked presents.  
But what’s worse, Stiles thought, was the one gift he did get someone that he wouldn’t be able to deliver. This one gift that, when Stiles saw it on the shelf in the store snatched it up just in case someone else was going to steal it for Derek Hale, has sat in his room, in a tightly wrapped box under his bed for months now because he saw it all the way back in October. He had wrapped and re-wrapped it carefully several times before he was happy with the job. After all, it wouldn't’ do to give Derek a shittily wrapped gift. He had agonized over what kind of wrapping paper (seasonally festive or elegantly simple?), bow or no bow, and finally what to put on the card: “To: Derek”, “To: Sourwolf”, “To: The Man Of My Dreams Whom I Hope Devirginizes Me Like Yesterday”? So many decisions and Stiles had agonized and tormented himself over every one each day for the past three months. But of course none of that mattered now because Derek was God-knows-where with God-knows-who doing God-knows-not-Stiles. Besides, Stiles had told himself several times, it’s not like Derek would have gotten him anything anyway and it would have been kind of awkward if he gave without receiving. But then thoughts like this inevitably turned masturbatory, Stiles imagining Derek being so stunned and grateful for the gift that he pushed Stiles down onto all fours and gave him the only gift Derek could think of. In this regard, Stiles thought, he was actually being quite selfish with the gift. The same way he used to be with Lydia, trying to win her favor or make her think that he deserved something like a kiss or a hand job (depending on the day) and when Stiles finished himself off to this fantasy he felt a pit in his stomach. It wasn’t really about giving Derek anything, it was more about trying to trick Derek into giving him something he wanted that Derek most definitely did not. If Stiles wrapped it perfectly, had the perfect thing on the card, and gave it to Derek at the exact right time then Derek must reward him. It was selfish and childish (and utterly pointless now that Derek was gone without a trace) and yet Stiles still had that gift tucked under his bed wrapped prettily and safely waiting for Derek’s strong yet nimble hands to unwrap it and gently pull that paper apart. Part of Stiles liked the idea of a child-like Derek tearing into the paper and screaming with joy at the gift underneath. But no, Derek could be gentle with things that mattered, things that were precious and fragile when he know just how precious and fragile they were. Derek could be soft and rough at the same time, Derek could look so sad when he smiled, and Derek could somehow look at Stiles and make him feel like the world was burning up all around him despite the cold annoyance in his gaze. A man like Derek, or rather a wolf like him, was a combination of conflicting ideas and personality traits that could make any person dizzy to think about. But then again, maybe Stiles dizziness in regards to Derek was purely from the flips his stomach did whenever the brooding wolf was in the room.  
“Pointless,” Stiles muttered to himself as he shifted through the many novelty ties on the rack searching for one that would be right for his dad. “He probably wouldn’t even wear any of these.”  
“You could get him one shaped like a fish,” Malia suggested sneaking up behind him. Okay, well, maybe she wasn’t trying to sneak up that was just a habit of hers. Or of were-animals. Or maybe just of Hales. Yes it was Hale specific. Must be genetic. “I’m getting my dad one shaped like a fish.” She held it up as if she needed to prove to Stiles that, yes there was a tie shaped like a fish, and yes she did find it, and yes she was buying it. She also seemed a little too excited about the idea that there was such a thing. LIke maybe she didn't want to show it but she was thrilled about it’s existence.  
“He’s, um, already got one,” Stiles lied. She probably heard his heartbeat go up but she didn’t say anything. She merely shrugged and put her fish tie back into her bag. More fish ties for her dad she probably figured.  
“I’m done shopping. I’m going to go nap in the car. Can I have the keys.”  
“That’s all you’re getting?” Stiles pointed to her one bag hold the one tie.  
“I can’t think of anyone else to buy for.”  
“What?” Stiles blanched. “Come on. You’ve got to get Scott something. He’s your alpha. And Lydia, she helped you with math all last semester.”  
“I got them things too.” She began rummaging through her bag and pulled out two fishing lures and held them up to Stiles. “For Lydia.”  
“You got her-what? Does she fish?”  
“They’re earrings,” She said simply and put them back.  
“I don’t think they’re going to fit into her piercings-” Stiles began but Malia interrupted again her hand shooting out of the bag to hold up proudly her gift for Scott. “It’s-er- Big Mouth Billy Bass?”  
“Isn’t it great?” She was way too thrilled about this. She pushed the button and Stiles winced as the fish started singing “Take Me To The River”. “It’s funny! Because he’s a dead fish.”  
“No. I get the joke.”  
She glared at him and put the gift back. “I like it. Scott should like it too.”  
“Wait a minute,” Stiles realized, “did you just visit the hunting and fishing section?”  
“No other section sounded interesting.”  
“Oh dear god, Malia,” Stiles groaned and put his hand to his head.  
“What?” She raised her voice in indignation now. “Are you mad I didn’t get you anything? I thought that would be weird. You’re not supposed to get your ex-boyfriend a gift.”  
Stiles thought that if the current evidence was correct then he definitely did not want Malia to get him a gift. He’d probably end up with a cup of dead worms wrapped under his tree. “It’s not that.”  
“Why not just tell me what you want for Christmas?” Stiles heart wrenched in his chest and maybe Malia heard it because she had a look of shock and sympathy on her face. Stiles averted it as quickly as he could.  
“It’s those gifts they’re not,” he paused looking for a sensitive word but he remembered that Malia hated sensitive words, “very good.”  
She huffed. “Well I don’t know what else to do. No one watches DVDs anymore. I gave Lydia ‘Clueless’ for her birthday and she acted like she’d never seen one before.”  
“Despite that fact that Clueless is an amazing film-”  
“It’s the best film.”  
“Despite that,” Stiles went on, “why don’t you try looking online?”  
She grimaced. “Isn’t online just for creeps and weirdos?”  
“What?” Stiles blinked. “No. I mean, yes mostly, but they’ve mainstreamed it all now. It’s for everyone now.”  
“That reminds me,” She said crossing her arms, “how come you haven’t friended me back on MySpace?”  
“Oh dear god,” Stiles groaned putting his hand on her shoulder and ushering her towards the front doors, “Forget gift shopping for today. I have to teach you about things that have happened since 2004.” Stiles was happy to find out that he, in fact, was not the worst gift giver in the world.

 

Malia mentioning MySpace, and then going through the painful process of deleting her Myspace and LiveJournal accounts, much to her dismay and complaining that all of her Series of Unfortunate Events fanfiction would be gone now, had gotten Stiles thinking. When Stiles started thinking it became very hard for him to stop until he ran himself into the ground with satisfying his obsession. Googling “Derek Hale Myspace” was easy and finding the profile was even easier. Not a lot of Derek Hales in Beacon Hills. Just the one really. But then Stiles should have expected that because Derek Hale was one of a kind.  
He was so even in his youth. Derek’s profile, which probably should have been set to “private” considering all the sensitive werewolf information that might get out with just one slip up, was full of things that reminded Stiles, shockingly, that Derek used to smile a lot. Probably before your house burns down with your entire family in it you smile more, Stiles reasoned. Probably when it turns out to be the fault of you and your teenage boner it makes you smile even less.  
Thinking these thoughts and seeing pictures of a smiling (albeit flash eyed) Derek grinning charmingly at the camera made Stiles home-sick in a strange “but I’m literally in my own home right now” way. He minimized the screen on a picture of teen Derek at a Christmas party with his mom and Peter decorating a tree. Stiles climbed onto his bed trying to lay down flat at first but slowly curling more and more into himself as he thought about Derek. Sad Derek, with no family left (except Cora who was off in Scotland or France or South America or wherever) on Christmas. All those memories surrounding the season coming to Derek in each commercial and decorated store window, wherever Derek was, and him remembering that he was alone. He was without family, without pack, and without gifts for Christmas. Even in Stiles’ own household which had been small to begin with and then even smaller after his mother’s death there was a lingering space by the tree. A space that should have had a warm body in it, smiling down at Stiles and sipping hot cider with his dad, a space that should be laughing at her gift to her husband and taking pictures of Stiles surrounded by pieces of wrapping paper. A space that would kiss him on the head and sing carols with him. A space that would bundle him up and insist that they go walking in the neighborhood to look at the decorations on the houses.  
Stiles could only imagine the amount of spaces in Derek’s life now. Each one heavy on his heart and containing multitudes of regret. One space for his mother, another for his sister, his father, his aunts, his cousins, his non-douche bag uncles, his grandparents. Each one an empty space filling up a room until the only thing that could possibly surround Derek during this time of love and family, would be a lonely sense of guilt.  
If only he would come back, Stiles thought, and not in a way of getting Derek into bed but in a way of just hoping to make Derek feel like he could fill the space with at least one person. Stiles wanted to be something in the space.  
He crawled down over his bed to look under it, checking for the gift with its bright red bow and white wrapping paper.  
But it wasn’t there. Stiles sat up blinking at his wall trying to figure out if he’d seen correctly. maybe he had just overlooked it? After all, he’d just been thinking about empty spaces and all that bullshit, maybe he just made it invisible. He bent down to look again but there was nothing. He scrambled off the bed, hitting his head on the floor and crawled underneath searching and moving for it. Where was it? Where was that gift? That most precious and cared for, that constantly checked for every night to make sure it was still in tact, gift that Stiles knew must be under his bed. He knew it could not be anywhere else.  
But it was somewhere else. It was not there. Something like despair, but then it probably was despair, cloaked itself over Stiles and he curled into a ball again and wept this time. Wept not for his own sadness, his own missing piece that was Derek, not because all he wanted was to see Derek and hear him and know he was all right, but for Derek himself. He cried for the little boy whose father died at such a young age, and the teenager who loved a girl destroyed by his kind, for the broken hearted and wide-eyed boy that trust a woman who tore him apart, for the man who tried to move on only to have his last remaining family murdered by his uncle, for the man who was filled with so much sadness that he was happy to die just this past year. Stiles cried and cried because of all the horrors in the world the only thing he could think of was that Derek had had so much taken from him and now even this was gone. Even Stiles’ one gift, an attempt to give Derek a moment of cheer, this had been ripped away too.  
“Are you okay?” It was gruff and familiar but had the tone of concern which Stiles was not used to hearing. He shot up hitting his head hard on his box spring and he yelped.  
“Jesus,” Derek winced and laid down on his belly to look at Stiles under the bed.  
“He’s the reason for the season,” Stiles muttered rubbing at the bump on his head too caught up in all his pain to really register what was happening.  
“Sorry I scared you. What’s wrong?”  
“Wrong? Nothing,” Stiles gulped looking at Derek trying to process the fact that he was here but his brain was short circuiting around it, “nothing’s wrong.”  
“Are you sure?” Derek’s eyebrows went up. “Because you’re under your bed crying.”  
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Stiles squirmed forward on his belly out from under the bed and Derek stood up as well. “What are you doing here?”  
“Malia said-”  
“When did you talk to Malia?”  
“She said you wanted to see me,” Derek went on without answering Stiles question and Stiles found that he didn’t mind. After all Derek was ignoring what he was saying right in Stiles very own room which was better than being ignored from a distance.  
Stiles eyes meant to roam over all of Derek’s perfect body but paused when they hit his hands holding a very familiar, expertly wrapped, box. Stiles pointed at it but didn’t say anything. Derek smiled.  
“Is this for me?” Stiles was about to deny it but Derek was holding the To/From tag. He just nodded instead. “Thank you,” Derek said sincerely and sadly. Like maybe it had been a long time since someone had thought enough of Derek, loved him enough, to get him a gift. It was the saddest and most beautiful thing Stiles had ever heard and because of that he started to cry again (although that wasn’t hard because that sadness hadn’t left him yet) and he launched himself at Derek hugging him around the neck tightly, pushing that stupid gift out of Derek’s hands and clinging to him. There was a stunned pause and then, finally, Stiles felt Derek’s arms wrapping around him.


End file.
